Honest Indie Talk: What Are Your Career Goals?

Today I’m going to talk a little bit more about the writer’s journey and trying to make a living as a writer these days. I think one question that you really need to answer before you do anything is why are you doing this? Why are you writing? What is it you hope to accomplish? What are your career goals?

These are important questions because you’re establishing more than just a way of making money. You’re establishing a career, a legacy of your life, basically. So here is the question I would have you ask yourself: how would you like your obituary to read? That’s an exercise I’ve never thought of doing, writing my own obituary and putting down what I hope to accomplish. Maybe that’s worth doing. Maybe that’s worth thinking about because when you come down to it, everything you do as a writing entrepreneur or whatever you want to call yourself is a choice.

You’re establishing a career, a legacy of your life, basically. So here is the question I would have you ask yourself: how would you like your obituary to read?

It’s a decision to spend time doing whatever it is you want to do. And whether that’s writing books or writing screenplays or writing scripted podcasts or reality show scripts, that’s entirely up to you. Now, the way you distribute it is also entirely up to you. And I will hold off on talking about distribution for now.

I want to focus on values because that is so important here. You value certain things. You’re trying to communicate certain things and you do that in your work. So deciding what’s important to you and what you want to write about are extremely important parts of all this.

You value certain things. You’re trying to communicate certain things and you do that in your work. So deciding what’s important to you and what you want to write about are extremely important parts of all this.

So regardless of whether you are Amazon exclusive or a blogger or a person who goes wide as an indie author or traditionally published, all these things are important. So having said that, that’s an exercise that might be worth doing, and then sitting down and thinking about what you really want to accomplish in your life with your writing, and then focusing on how you will sell it and how you will distribute it.

And I have a lot of thoughts on that and some of them have to do with this. My Kobo. I’ve been a Kobo reader since 2012 and a Kobo author since 2012. And I wouldn’t change a thing. This is my dead Kindle. It died on me and I’m not replacing it, but maybe I’ll sell it on Amazon. “Dead Kindle, makes great doorstop.” 🙂

Talk to you later.